A number of the products on offer have confusing names, perhaps MC can think about asking a few of the more trusted Forumites or the like for feedback to take into consideration as well.
I realise that's not so easy as the products cannot be known about before launch, but some plan must be possible.

Here's some examples of current confusion;

The old 4 tuner UEC HD PVR is called the "4U", and so is the new 4136 HD Decoder (in this case I would think it could be the manufacturer(s) doing this).

"HD Decoder" itself is confusing, someone posted this morning that they thought that meant that their HD PVR 2P could fully work with the A7 remote. Although we're told that MC are not giving decoders names like "Explora" anymore, there must be a better description.

"Compact Plus" - sometimes non-South Africans come here and talk about that package of theirs which confuses many as our equivalent of sorts is called "Extra". All other packages are now named the same everywhere except this one.

"Extra" (package) and "XtraView" (sharing decoders under one account) - this difference has been misunderstood a few times.

Update: The last two points above are no longer a concern as MC later changed the local package's name from "Extra" to "Compact Plus".

"Remote Recording" - the use of the online facility to relay recording commands to an online connected Explora, but can be confused with using a remote control to do recordings.
How about "Distance Recording"?

"Safety Nets" - not a term I've come across anywhere before, so I'm wondering if it's easily understood.
Elsewhere I've seen it referred to as "buffering", but that isn't a good word for it and would be more confusing as we have the PVRs' buffering of live broadcasts.
More understood is the term "safety margins".

Quick question - where did you see that? That's definitely not the name of the decoder. It's a HD PVR 4 tuner (UEC) or HD PVR 4 tuner (Pace).

Hi Brenda, thanks for the follow-up query.

It's certainly been a main reference name for them all the time I've been on the forum.
I haven't quickly been able to find an example of any official use, so it could well be old slang, but if so it's derived from the norm as the 2U, 2P and 2S descriptions are used by MC.

Quick question - where did you see that? That's definitely not the name of the decoder. It's a HD PVR 4 tuner (UEC) or HD PVR 4 tuner (Pace).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Optimist

Hi Brenda, thanks for the follow-up query.

It's certainly been a main reference name for them all the time I've been on the forum.
I haven't quickly been able to find an example of any official use, so it could well be old slang, but if so it's derived from the norm as the 2U, 2P and 2S descriptions are used by MC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MC Brenda

Thanks. 2P and 2U were the first time we applied that naming convention to our PVRs.

There was somewhere a post about this before, where we were led to believe (maybe incorrectly interpreted) That the letter "U" was for UEC decoders, the letter "P" was for Pace decoders and the letter "S" was used for the new manufacturer of Explora and HD decoders.

Before that I certainly tried to be very specific when referring to the 4 tuner decoders as per MC Brenda's post.

After the letter post, the "4U" started to be used for the HD PVR 4 tuner (UEC), but caused confusion when the HD decoder came out because it was also called the "4U" and it seemed that this decoder was not made by UEC anyway. (or, at least there are or were, two manufacturers of the HD decoder).

After that I started again being very specific and refer to either the HD decoder 4136 or just HD decoder, because somewhere in MCs FAQs I came across both descriptions being used more or less interchangeably. I have not checked if the FAQs have been changed.

Geoff you are correct... the U, S and P denote the manufacturer.
The number is the decoder model evolution.
The only time it was applied to the PVRs, was for the 2P and 2U. Now it only applies to single view decoders.
We've had 3U, and our latest models are the 4U and 4S.
There is also a technical decoder number - but since the 1131, we don't really ask for that number.
The 2P, 2U, 4U, 4S and even now the Explora 2 all have the model number on the front panel of the decoder. That way, when we talk to customers we ask them "which decoder do you have" and "which model is it".
Hope that makes sense.

Very interesting, I would think that most have believed that the "2" refers to the number of tuners

I won't be able to contribute anything more, I registered early but only started posting mid 2010 by which time the 2P was already out (for those who don't know, the HD PVR 4 tuners preceded that).
Before that I was involved in other feedback projects but not with HD PVRs.

Yes it does. Certainly my HDPVR 4 tuner (UEC) has no model number or anything on the front. I have not tried to see what is on the back, and I would have unpack a cupboard to see what is on the 4 tuner pace.

I actually preferred the old set up where we used to refer to these boxes by their technical model numbers ( 1110, 1131, 1132) but then that is because I have a bias towards the technical side.